Texas is now about to face six lawsuits that target the way it funds public schools.

The Texas Charter School Association announced Tuesday that it would enter the legal fray, arguing that the state has short-changed charter schools because it does not provide funding for facilities.

“Just because a parent puts his or her students in a charter school doesn’t mean that they deserve that funding any less,” said David Dunn, the association’s executive director. “It’s a pretty simple argument: They get billions, we get zero.”

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And the state should start paying for all the private roads and private utilities also, I suppose. I know, let's create our own voter registration system and tell the state to pay for it too--or how about having a private government that the state pays for....

Is the sunset commission going to study charters at some point? Are we getting any real value out of these schools? Couldn't we basically get the same value by just putting waiting lists on all public schools in Texas so parents can feel like their kids are getting an exclusive education?

When charter schools have to play by ALL of the rules and regulations that public schools are subject to, then, maybe, we could have this conversation. We do not need to fund charter schools the same way, that was one of the ideas of charter schools.

June 26, 2012 @ 4:31 p.m.

TrueTexas

It's the rules and regulations made up by legislators and bureaucrats that don't know what they are doing that is the problem. That's what charter schools are trying to fix.

So much for the long-standing charter argument of "we can do it better and cheaper". It turns out that numerous studies say they're not doing it better and now they're staying they can't do it cheaper.

What charters want and what they've wanted all along is a fully state-supported parallel private school system that does not have to take difficult, dangerous or handicapped students and the ability to teach whatever their sect says is true.

What they're saying with this lawsuit is that they can't hire quality teachers on the minimum wage salaries they offer or provide the infrastructure and supplies students need unless they have the same dollar amount as the public schools. So where is the savings then to the public purse? The next time someone writes an editorial saying public schools are overfunded and charters provide better education far more efficiently I'm going to point to this lawsuit and to the TEA data and say you're full of it.